High Signs 3: Living on the Upside of the Zodiac

Sagittarius through Pisces

© 2009 by Joyce Mason

In Part 1 and Part 2 of High Signs, we covered Aries through Cancer, then Leo through Scorpio. The purpose of this three-part article series is to identify some of the most optimal ways to express each of the twelve signs in our charts and lives. A natural process of inner evolution reveals itself in the 12-stage cycle of the signs, as well as hints on how to break through core issues to resolution. Here's a recap of the key lessons of the signs previously covered and a preview of the final third of the zodiac wheel. These are the stages represented by each sign in the inner growth process:

Twelve Stages of Inner Growth

Aries - Conception
Taurus -Rooting
Gemini – Growing conditions
Cancer – Seedling protection
Leo – First bloom
Virgo – Fullness of bloom
Libra – Sharing harvest
Scorpio – Harvest alchemy
Sagittarius – Teaching others how to garden and share seeds
Capricorn- Agriculture or profit from personal growth
Aquarius – Feeding the world, eliminating world hunger
Pisces – Return to seed or dormancy in preparation for a new cycle

Now we move onto the final third of the cycle from Sagittarius through Pisces.


Sagittarius – Bloomin’ Teachers

I think of Sag, given this series of inner growth metaphors, as the Johnny Appleseed of ideas who teaches best what he most needs to learn about growth and expansion—to an extreme. An armchair or actual world traveler who likes the fun side of life, some of Sag’s teaching techniques include bluntness, pontificating, and jokes (maybe at your expense). These gaffes are balanced by enthusiasm, generosity, and tendency to wax philosophical, if not spiritual. Unfortunately, Sag’s way of looking at the world is often “my way’s the right way and the only way.” As we know from tending the flowers in the pots on our porch, different species have different needs and growth requirements. Some shrivel in the sun; some need full exposure. Others are thirsty, while some species easily wilt from overwatering.

The Know It All can be demeaning. I have an older Sag relative who has literally taken things out of my hands to do it his way and often treats me like a small child when, actually, I have more diverse life experience than he does. Like Lucy in Peanuts, if he can’t be right, he’ll be wrong at the top of his lungs. (You have to laugh or pull your hair out.)

You can’t argue with the Sag lease on life—he really wants to teach you about learning and how to have a good time on life’s adventure. It’s the attitude and method of delivery that sometimes need adjustment, especially on more delicate flowers or fragile ferns.

While Sag loves to see the world, to collect and spread his ideas—a good thing on face value—deluging others with his conclusions is like overwatering certain plants or blasting them with full sun when they need part-shade. Sag has to learn what my first spiritual teacher taught me about any idea, “Take what feels right and toss the rest.” When Sag learns his receivers have a right and responsibility to accept or reject input, there can be a more fun flow of ideas exchanged, even in the fiery Sag heat of play arguments. After all, they are only ideas, which change constantly, if we really do that Sag thing and explore the entire world of ‘em. Sag reaches a higher plane when he learns not just to collect and judge ideas, but also to teach the joy of learning and growth for its own sake.

Sag teaches others how to garden and share seeds with the world.


Capricorn – The Business of Selling Yourself

No matter what business Capricorn is in, at some level she’s selling herself. Her bloomin’ spirit is what she has to offer—what she knows and can do for others in the world. Capricorn represents agriculture or making her inner growth her business.

Whether she sells stocks, personal growth seminars, houses, or hardware, Capricorn is the gardener or farmer who profits from her own knowledge and expertise. Her stumbling block is pouring herself too much into the product. That Saturn-ruled overwork and harshness on self that Capricorn is known for? It comes from the belief that she must infuse herself like a repetitive booster shot into every concept, product, and procedure and micro-manage the whole shebang. This can literally lead to very controlling behavior and over-fertilization, if you will. Worse, it’s not very good for the executive herself. She sets herself up for jangled nerves and other health risks by working too hard.

A major mental realignment that needs to take place to express Capricorn in a high way is to self-trust. You sell yourself by being yourself. There’s no need to put on the heavy sales pitch, make it hard, or dog every single nut, bolt, and ball bearing in the production process. Good management means knowing how to put your principles and personal growth bounty into a trickle-down effect that makes people work in a way that benefits the business and runs it in your style.

The upside of Capricorn’s ruler, Saturn, is sound structure. When the structure works, everything falls into place. No need to make work hard and worry about every little step. While we pair Capricorn with the 10th House and public life, the same applies to Capricorn’s personal life. Set your firm foundation, then be yourself. A solid relationship with Saturn is like a self-cleaning oven. Create a self-fulfilling business or home life with your organizational skills!

Sag teaches others how to garden. Capricorn profits from personal growth.

Aquarius – Feeding the World, Flashing on the Future

Innovative and community-oriented, most Aquarians don’t have the same concerns with the bottom line as Capricorns. They just want to eliminate world hunger, in both the literal and figurative sense, and other social inequities. The Aquarian’s lightning bolts of inspiration tell him how and what the problem looks like—solved.

That’s the pain and promise of the Aquarian visionary. Living as he does on the leading edge with a pulse to the future, he sees the best possible outcome. Aquarius may even have glimmers of what needs to be done to get there. What Aquarians are not so hot on? Process. Getting from Here to There, There being what they visualize as utopia.

If they seem flighty, unreliable, eccentric, opinionated, tactless or fickle at times, it’s just hard for them to be patient with people who are so out of it. Imagine living as they do, their highly mental capacities meeting the visual jolts of what I call “préja vue.” (That’s the opposite of déjà-vue, a preview of the future.) It’s so clear to them, these reformists who thrive on the freedom to be you ‘n’ me. (Think John Lennon's Moon in Aquarius reflected in and his consummate Aquarian song, “Imagine.”)

The last of the fixed signs, like all of them, Aquarius has to let go of something--the fast forward button. He can be the leaven in the loaf that brainstorms the new idea and catalyzes change. There are similarities with Aries—both dealing with the early stages of projects or movements—but Aquarius differs. Aries is in it for the adventure and newness; Aquarius is in it for the truth and vision. Unlike Aries, who can find his place in short-term projects or the beginnings of them, Aquarius is needed at all stages of the project, even though it can get boring and uncomfortable for him. The role of Aquarius is to hold the vision. In the nitty gritty of evolving from here to there or now to then, people need an ongoing infusion of visionary insight from the non-conformists who challenge tradition and awaken the complacent to the possibilities within the new. When the job is frustrating, their friends are their solace—especially other people with planets in Aquarius or similar astrological signatures.

Ironically, the original ruler of Aquarius was Saturn before the discovery of Uranus, its modern ruler. Making peace with Saturn, the ruler of time, is still part of the Aquarian challenge, even though Uranus keeps its electric pulse running through Aquarius like a cattle prod to shock him into his role of making change.

There are worlds to feed, humanity to evolve. Aquarius feeds the world with innovative discoveries and visions of a better tomorrow.


Pisces – Meditate, Don’t Medicate

I started this series with a quote by artist Corita Kent, comparing her High Cards to the concept of High Signs—creating a parallel to her thought about turning melodrama into a mellow drama for each sign’s expression. I’d like to end the 12-sign cycle with a quote by the poet, Rumi. I think it especially fits Pisces and this final stage:

With every breath, I plant the seeds of devotion. I am a farmer of the heart. ~ Rumi

In the twelve-phase inner growth process, Pisces goes back to seed or dormancy to await rebirth in Aries, when the cycle starts all over again. It is the phase “between worlds” where life and death merge into a process that slowly grows from one to the other. This phase of inner evolution involves feeling at one with the largest possible reality of which we are a part. Pisces is the cosmic soup. She is at home in a watery medium.

I had an interesting experience as I started to write about Pisces for this article. I was taking notes about the inner growth cycle, putting the astrological glyph next to each phase of the process in my hand scribbles. When I got to Pisces, I temporarily blanked on what the symbol looks like. I’ve been an astrologer for nearly 30 years! Was I having a dreaded senior moment--or was it my refusal to incorporate my Virgo Sun complement and some sort of Piscean prejudice rearing its ugly head?

Neither. Like the actor that becomes the character, I was the writer becoming the sign. Pisces often cannot define itself, draw itself, or extract its individuality out of the collective consciousness. In that Piscean moment, I “got” why Pisces has difficulty with boundaries and coming down to earth.

Yet, too much love of the otherworldly state takes a person from the return-to- seed stage to just plain seedy. As long as Pisces is still on earth, she has to live on solid ground. How do we minimize spaciness, escapist behavior, self-deception and a bunch of other “self” prefix words that actually aren’t self-honoring at all, such as self-pity and self-effacing? How do we shift emphasis from neuroses, substance abuse, and lack of realism or focus?

Here’s where the Rumi quote comes in. Devotion and heart—some sort of higher consciousness, spirituality, or humanitarianism—are crucial to this stage of the evolutionary cycle. The upside of Pisces couldn’t be better: sympathy, sensitivity, compassion, creativity, idealism, artistry, vision, acute intuition or psychic abilities, a person with the antennae to attract the most out of life who simply needs a filtering system to keep negative energies from flowing in with all that good.

My first spiritual teacher used to talk about how meditation builds up your aura, creating a strong energy field or buffer zone against any psychic attacks or just plain negative energy. A good prescription for Pisces is meditate, don’t medicate. Most of the action for this sign happens above ground in the ethers—but to walk the earth with any measure of success, Pisces needs to hit the restart button on the sky-to-earth and earth-to-sky interface on a regular basis. Devotions, such as yoga, meditation, dance, or prayers take the spiritual substance and bring it into physical form. Bliss! And grounding. It’s the Fish formula. Bliss and Grounding could be the name of the two fish swimming in opposite directions in the Pisces symbol.

As farmers of the heart, Pisces can plant the seed of the universal heart center connection in their devotional practices and by living their life as a prayer. That doesn’t mean being a goody two-shoes like their Virgo counterparts are sometimes known to act, but rather honing the talent to beam in and out of that state of cosmic channeling to bring the information down to share with other earthlings, including themselves, when they return to grounded consciousness. The methods are endless: humor, writing, play, music.

When Pisces protects its seeds from being washed out by too much watery behavior or substances, it begins to build up the energy it will need to burst into bloom in the next growth cycle. Pisces contains the energy, lessons, and experience of the entire 12-fold growth process. Pisces is all of us, and when she goes from sky to earth and back again in her devotions, she is the ever replenishing food supply in the biblical lesson of the loaves and fishes: feeding humanity with the soul nurturing needed for the next round on Earth—and, ultimately—for the final trip back to the stars.

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Postscript: During World War I and II, citizens planted

victory gardens in private residences in the US, UK, Canada, and Germany. Victory gardens reduced pressure on the public food supply brought on by the war effort. The gardens were also great morale boosters. Many gardeners felt empowered by their contribution of labor and rewarded by their homegrown produce. Victory gardens became a part of daily life on the home front.

Not only do we have our continued share of wars and situations on the brink of it on Earth at this time, the war between the darkest and lightest potentials of self-expression is likely to wage on as long as we incarnate.

There’s a parallel in the inner garden we’ve just finished planting and harvesting in the cycle of the zodiac. If we tend that garden, it’s a morale booster. It triggers a divine domino effect that ends world hunger on every level.

The most profound truths are often the simplest. Plant and tend your garden—for real or in your mind as a metaphor of your psycho-spiritual evolution. Since “as above, so below,” both would be perfect.

Photo credit: HAPPY CHILDREN GIVING VICTORY SIGN © Maszas Dreamstime.com

High Signs 1: Living on the Upside of the Zodiac

Aries through Cancer

© 2009 by Joyce Mason

One of my all-time favorite artists is Corita Kent, a former Catholic nun whose pop artwork was very “inspirational ‘60s.” She wove words and color together in a rainbow of good causes: the women’s movement, the peace movement, and the love and joy movement—the movement that’s timeless. (Here’s a short film clip that gives an animated tour in a minute and a half about the difference she made.) Corita literally made peace and love signs.

My closest connection to Corita was through her High Cards. They were some of her best poster-like art on colorful half-page postcards. I still treasure my High Cards, which are older than dirt and have accumulated their share of actual dirt from well-worn reading and display in my office for encouragement.

One of the High Cards I love best is black and white and says:

“Change your melodrama into a mellow drama.” – Corita Kent

Since The Radical Virgo advocates evolutionary astrology where each person becomes all he or she was meant to be in optimal self-expression, I thought I’d take page out of Corita’s book and offer some “high ideas” on how that would look on each of the signs of the zodiac. My article, The Radical Virgo, does that in detail for the Virgo, but how about the complete set of twelve? Each sign can choose mellow drama instead of melodrama, high sign or low sign.

Learning the potentials of the 12 prototypes is a life-long quest—a conversation we can never have too often or stop exploring in depth—because the zodiac signs are the foundation of the astrological alphabet and our sky-to-earth understanding.

Here are my thoughts on how the High Signs would look from A(ries) to P(isces). We are living organisms. It's no surprise that an inner growth cycle emerges from the zodiac that largely parallels plant growth. Most of us know the popular saying, paraphrased in several biblical passages and more recently made popular by artist Mary Engelbreit: “Bloom where you are planted.” The seeds of our personalities are indeed sown in the signs of the zodiac. We are responsible for tending them like good gardeners for the best yield and quality of crop.

To keep this meaty but to avoid overwhelm, we’ll take this tour around the zodiac in three posts. Today, #1: Aries through Cancer. In the next two weeks, #2 – Leo through Scorpio; and finally, #3 - Sagittarius through Pisces.

Aries Firestorm – Controlled Burn and Renewal

What boundless energy! This person’s creativity is on fire. (My friend, Pop Art Diva, has Aries Moon, and I swear that woman draws and doodles in her sleep! She is an artist whose productivity and non-stop creative flow boggle the imagination.)

Some of the most exciting qualities of this sign are self-starting, adventurous, and courageous. Aries is the spring seed energy, the Get Up and Go of Life. This Mars-ruled sign needs action! When qualities of impulsiveness, hotheadedness, need to win at all costs, and self-centeredness can be contained like a controlled burn or burned off to leave their tempered complement, Aries begins to evolve to its highest calling—conception. Aries is a think tank, not a bureaucrat. This soul does its most sacred work scattering the seeds of new life and belongs in places where he contributes to constant new beginnings. When Aries is being himself, his mantra is, be-gin. A starter more than a finisher, Aries is most at home in the exciting first stages of a business, project, or relationship. Projects that are short from conception to fruition are his forte.

Obviously, to succeed in certain areas of life, especially relationship; you can’t be just a starter. You need to be in it for the long haul. At her best, Aries finds a way to create constant renewal in all areas of life. Very appealing to Ram-mates who might dig the continuous honeymoon possibilities!

Taurus – Dirt Revels

What on earth do I mean by that? Taurus revels in the upside of the Earth element (dirt)—the beauty of nature, physicality, sensuousness, and all the resources money can buy. The Bull’s steady, persistent nature allows him or her to acquire a lot of goodies.

As a Taurus evolves, she lets go of materialistic tendencies, realizing that if you clutch dirt, you just get your hands dirty. Learning to let go of possessiveness also goes for people and relationships. I love that Earth Day occurs when the Sun is in Taurus. This holiday is a reminder to let go of concern about greenbacks and, instead, to let in the green all around us. Taurus “rising,” as in evolving, comes to terms with the psycho-spiritual aspects of abundance. He is in the constant flow of prosperity and does not need to be possessive or obsessive about security.

This Venus-ruled sign must be surrounded by beauty, especially nature. Often artistic with an eye for color, if the Aries conceives, Taurus takes root. Using steadfastness and her love of the good things in life, this sign sends out deep taproots of living abundance. Earthy, in deed!

Gemini—Making Friends with the Not So Evil Twin

How does a Gemini overcome talking too much, being scattered, distracted, restless or who has trouble following through? She takes her duality and makes it her friend. There are two Gemini Twins, Castor and Pollux, male and female. We often joke about Gemini’s split personality, but as Gemini evolves, she makes it a good thing. If her mental high energy causes her fuss or fidget, the other twin can put an arm around her shoulder, like a loving but firm mom, and say, “Sweetheart, you’ve got to knock it off.” This sign, more than most, has the capacity to get outside itself to observe itself. Gemini is an air sign ruled by Mercury. The trick is to make friends with both twins and a pact that they’re going to work together to channel all that airy, Mercurial energy before it blows them away like so much dandelion fluff.

I have a favorite image from an old childhood cartoon. It showed, arguing repeatedly, an angel and devil on the shoulder of the main character (who must have been a Gemini!). The angel was arguing for the high road; the devil, of course, voted for the self-serving pleasure of the moment. Gemini is facile with our greatest tool, the mind, which can be an angel of positive manifestation or the devil that takes us to hell in a hand basket, if not managed.

The Twins working as a team with Gemini’s Higher Self can take him and his mind to full expression of his charms: spontaneous, innovative, alert, energetic, and unbiased. With his intellectual and logical mind, he can grow not just in the ability to think, but also in the joy of true knowledge. He can become an authority, not just a dabbler.

Lastly, as a purveyor of possibilities, Gemini shows us all the ways the wind could blow. This is a critical next step in the psycho-spiritual growth process that parallels nature. In Aries, the creation is conceived; in Taurus, it takes root. In Gemini, we assess atmospheric growing conditions that influence how our plant will flourish.

Cancer: Feelers, Not Tentacles

The Moon-Ruled Cancer makes me think about how the much of the human body is made up of water—55-60 %. Think of the Moon’s gravitational pull on the tides. No wonder emergency rooms overflow with physical and mental crises at the Full Moon! By definition, Cancer is more sensitive—even hypersensitive—to the forces of nature around her. How does she go from clingy, moody, self-indulgent, hoarding, and gluttonous to the high ground of receptivity, devotion, protection, positive changeability, and imaginative intuition?

The key is how she chooses to create a safe container. Whether it’s her home/nest or a the vision of a crystal bowl that holds her psyche, Cancer’s bowl or cup must contain her considerable water without spillage and leave her reflective and receptive without undue fear.

Cancers find security in being held, both literally and figuratively. That can be in her home, her psychic container, or a relationship with someone she trusts. All these things keep Cancer’s nurturing from running all over the place. Leaking the waters of Self are what leads to the clutchy, smothering behavior for which some Cancers are infamous. She wants to be held to get a hold of her feelings.

When Cancer puts attention on this key issue, she has created an incubator or greenhouse for her Self. In the psycho-spiritual growth process, we have gone from conception in Aries, to rooting in Taurus, and attention to weather and growth conditions in Gemini. Now, in Cancer, we have the flowerbed, row or container garden for seedling protection.



Next: High Signs, Part 2: Leo through Scorpio

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Learn more about Sr. Corita’s work in this video by LA Curator Aaron Rose who calls her art “radical, political graffiti” and captures it in this clip from her Passion for the Possible exhibit.

Corita Kent's birth data: 20-Nov-1918 in Ft. Dodge, IA. Time unknown.

Photo credit: HAPPY CHILDREN GIVING VICTORY SIGN © Maszas Dreamstime.com

Wordgo: The Virgo Way with Words

Why are Virgos in love with words?

For years, I have used the Celestial Influences astrological calendars. There is a two-word affirmation for each sign every month. Examples: “I Am” for Aries; “I Have” for Taurus, and “I Think” for Gemini.

The I-statement for Virgo is “I Analyze.” That job would be really difficult to do without words—lots of them!

There are some main areas of life that Virgos work on: knowledge, health, and service. Note the difference between the I-statement for Gemini and Virgo, both traditionally ruled by the Thinker Planet Mercury. Gemini thinks, but Virgo analyzes. Analysis can often make the difference between information and knowledge, between facts and wisdom.

Gemini often likes information for its own sake, the reason why so many folks with a lot of Gemini in their charts are likely to beat your butt at Trivial Pursuit. They throw factoids, dates and data around like confetti.

Virgo, on the other hand, is not happy until s/he knows why the fact is important, what the data means and exactly why a date was significant. To a Virgo, this is not a party, and that Gemini can take his damned confetti and mess elsewhere. This earth sign literally wants to bring the data down to earth, to know what it’s good for, and how it will help people.

We all know the expression, “garbage in, garbage out” or GIGO when it comes to using computers or any other kind of data crunching mechanism, including our own brains. A Virgo would never put in garbage. You know how much Virgos hate dirt! “Garbage out” would never be an acceptable outcome. The Virgo’s need to sift and winnow, her proverbial job of separating the wheat from the chaff, is ever so much easier if she starts with a decent crop of wheat, preferably organic.

Mercury is also the quicksilver god of communication, the winged messenger. It’s fun to contrast the Mercury-ruled signs. Gemini would love the thrill of having to run the message to its destination lickety-split. He’d deliver it with clever conversation and perhaps report on the weather and interesting encounters on the way. Virgo would be much more worried that the right message got to the right person at the right time. She’d be looking for shortcuts to get there efficiently and the correct person authorized to sign for the article.

So, how do we make the best of our Wordgo tendencies? Many of us are writers, editors, publishers, and composers. (Music is a more math-based type of writing, but if you’re a lyricist, too, what an impressive right- and left-brain merger!) The sign of Virgo has its share of actors and news personalities, all who make their living with words.

There are many potential jobs for Virgo, one of the most employable signs of the zodiac, because we love to work! But since this is the Radical Virgo blog, I hope you’ll comment and tell us your personal way with words, especially if you were a Virgin birth (born with Sun in Virgo); or if you have other Virgo planets that bless you with these proclivities. What do you do with words? How do you love them? (Count the ways.)

I’ll go first. Here are some of mine:

Writer, publisher, shameless punster, a word game player (Scrabble, Jumble, Spellbound) … and a person who loves words in art. One of my favorite artists ever was Corita Kent, whose words made beautiful became designs for posters, book covers, and murals. Her work includes the 1985 Love Stamp and Rainbow Swash, the 150-foot (46 m)-high natural gas tank in Boston. Her artwork, focused on messages of peace and love. That made it particularly popular during the social upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s. (Have you noticed how the peace sign is coming back, and not just on The Radical Virgo’s new blog header?)

I also love to rearrange words on the Internet Anagram Server. Some of my faves for “Radical Virgo” are Caviar Do Girl, Garlic Via Rod, A Rival Doc Rig, and Vocal Rag Rid I.

Of course, I research the derivation of words, and wear word jewelry. For my croning ceremony when I turned sixty, I was presented with a Light Drop Jewelry necklace that says Heals on one side, With Words on the other. I covet a pair of earrings made to replicate old typewriter keys. Unfortunately, my Mercury in Libra can’t make up her mind which keys she wants. While my initials, JM, are obvious possibilities, I sure would like an exclamation mark (!) or a dollar sign ($).

Finally, I thought I’d introduce you to Wordle, if you haven’t already met—word collages that capture the essence of a blog or website—or any cut ‘n’ paste concoction of words you want to feed into it. This Wordgo Wordle (say that 10 times!) was created by The Radical Virgo on April 19, 2009—a picture in time of what’s happening on this blog. Check out the words that stand out most:

Astrology Chiron Moon New Life Hero One Want

Freely translated: Astrology can be a healing path to receptivity, new life, and becoming our own heroes, the one thing we all want.

The Word from On High!

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Word-Class Reminder: Don't forget to mark your calendar for Donna Cunningham’s teleseminar on finding career signatures for writing in astrology charts, May 3, 2009.